


Edits

by Ladycat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:39:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Now," Spike said, "about rewriting this essay ... "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edits

Xander's arms were folded on the table, shoulders slumped so that his nose was buried in his shirt. It smelled laundry-fresh, an oddity up until about two months ago. Then, the shirt wouldn't have been long-sleeved. It also would have been _much_ whiffier, bordering on caustic and in need of massive amounts of Cheer.

He really wasn't sure if he liked this newer, cleaner version of himself. On the one hand—clean! What wasn't there to love about clean? On the other, however, there was the distinct lack of frequent showering, something Xander had come to appreciate. And there might be gym-membership fees in his future.

"Oh, god, I'm pathetic," he told his arms.

"Yeah, you are. Do you even _know_ what infinitives are? And how not to sodding split them?"

Xander reminded himself that clenching his teeth would only cause him headaches a few hours later. "No, Spike," he said, the words muffled and barely audible to his own covered ears. "I don't know what an infinitive is. Or how not to split one. Although I'm thinking it probably involves bananas."

Mmm, bananas. With hot fudge and the creamy french vanilla that Mrs. Parsons on the third floor made from scratch and offered to ‘her sweet boys'. Xander loved the elderly woman, but he was expected to since he was the quintessential white hat, friendly to aged mothers and little babies alike. Well, not the babies part—he was always afraid of smooshing their heads. That Spike, however, loved Mrs. Parsons with a fervor that terrified Xander, let her call him ‘Will' and would often be found in her apartment doing everything from reading her books to doing her cleaning— _cleaning!_ —while Xander was out...

Well, Xander didn't really have words for that. Finding out your brand new friend kills demons which, by the by, have totally infested your home, was nothing on watching Spike play the adoring surrogate son. Without any trace of irony or sarcasm.

It made Xander think very bad thoughts. Very, _very_ bad.

"Didn't Willow teach you proper grammar?" Spike half-snarled, paper crinkling softly in counterpoint, the occasional scratch of graphite adding its roughness at random moments. "I know she wouldn't have this many commas. On second thought, maybe she would—chit never knew a semi-colon in her life, I'll bet."

"I should probably take offense to that. Taking offense ... now!"

"Please, like you're any better."

Xander grinned, knowing Spike would hear it. "Not true! I've probably seen a semi-colon. I just don't know what they look like, so it doesn't matter, now does it? Is that one of those hybrid thingies, that's all snooty towards the lowly commas that don't have dots above them?"

Saying ‘nyah nyah' was much too childish, after all.

More paper rustling and pencil scratching. Wait—that meant Spike was writing. Not just ‘remove this' but whole treatises about how Xander needed Strunk and White grafted to his forehead and why this paragraph didn't work. Words Xander would have to _decipher_ when Spike finally gave it back.

Spike made doctors look legible.

Raising his head, Xander let his eyes adjust to the warm lamplight before looking at the sofa, Spike sprawled across it. He looked positively decadent, silk pyjamas riding low on his hips, legs flung this way and that, chest smooth and lickable while his two-toned hair—grown specifically on request—taunted Xander to run his fingers through it. 

Then Xander noticed that the cribbed, cramped, grey scrawl that covered the margins of two pages completely. There was no white anymore, just tiny little letters he wouldn't be able to read, prompting an argument he'd rather not have. Again. Swallowing against a suddenly dry tongue, he said, "Spike? This isn't my thesis. You don't need to write a paper about my paper. It's just, you know, busy work. Mostly."

Spike twisted so that the top of his head pressed into the sofa, eyes finding and meeting Xander's. He looked like a little kid doing that, the wrinkles Spike absolutely refused to acknowledge smoothing away into nothing, his glasses flopping back until the lenses made his eyes look huge. "Worried, are you?"

"It's three to five pages about metadata," Xander said flatly. "I'm really not. Or at least, I _wasn't_ before your Oxford Englishness decided to grab it out of my hands for editing."

"Well, it needed it! Clearly. You've got ... bloody hell." Spike's head righted itself, absently pulling his glasses down with him. "Harris, you have _two_ dangling participles. In a row! That's it. Come here."

Xander just stared. "Er?"

Grumbling, Spike righted himself and then reached out to yank Xander's foot. "Here. Now," he barked out.

It was the kind of voice a man in love learned not to disobey. Not if he was also more than mildly interested in some of the kinkier aspects of life. Cool hands, so delicate around a pencil but firm and strong against Xander's skin, stripped off Xander's jeans before he could blink, pressing Xander into the correct position over Spike's lap.

"Now, then," Spike said conversationally, hand making maddening circles on the small of Xander's back. "I counted twenty misplaced commas. Shall we start there?"

The first smack came down, hard despite the layer of thin cotton still protecting Xander's ass, before he could form a ‘yes'. What popped out instead was, "One."

"Good boy," Spike purred. "Knew you'd remember _this_ lesson."

Two and three soon became twenty and twenty two, with a slow-burning pain that had Xander rocking even as he gasped and forced himself not to tense. His boxers were gone, lost somewhere in the teens, as the muffled thump of flesh on cotton got annoying and both of them craved the sharp, ringing sound of skin on skin. Pain pushed Xander into a haze of lust and relief, all thoughts of school and homework pushed from his mind as Spike reminded him, slowly and patiently, words the right combination of dark menace and the affection only Mrs. Parsons ever heard, just _why_ Xander was back in school in the first place.

Xander could do nothing but moan, helpless, when Spike finally stopped hitting and shoved him back onto the sofa. The soft, plush material hurt against his raw skin, but then Spike was covering him, naked hips pressing against his own so that their cocks could rub together, and Xander didn't care about anything. Not when Spike was kissing him, words dissolving into meaningless sounds that Xander understood anyway. His pain turned white hot, mixing with the sweet glide of a cock against his own until Xander shuddered, almost sobbing as he covered their bellies, Spike following not three breaths later.

When the world spun lazily back into focus and Xander thought about complaining that Spike was heavy and his ass hurt like hell, a long arm reached out to snag the discarded papers. "Now," Spike said, "about rewriting this essay ... "

Xander chuckled. "Nope."

"What? Xan, you can't hand this shite in!"

He found the spot right at the base of Spike's jaw and sucked on that for a moment, thoughtfully. "Of course I'm not. Duh."

Spike blinked himself back into focus and glared. "And that means?"

"The final draft is on the computer," Xander said impishly, "already T.A. approved and grammar-checked. This was the draft I ended up scraping a week ago."

Spike's growl said that he was _really_ not amused. Fortunately, his kiss was forgiving and so full of appreciation that Xander knew it had to be love.


End file.
